


How to Save a Life

by Amethyst288



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, NaruSasu - Freeform, One Shot, SasuNaru - Freeform, SasuNaruSasu - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, implied/reference to suicidal tendencies, narusasunaru, sns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9377840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst288/pseuds/Amethyst288
Summary: One Shot.If anyone knew him it was Naruto and if anyone at all knew Naruto, it was him.It was that time of year again when Sasuke’s nightmares came back to haunt him.





	

_**How to Save a Life** _

 

It was that time of year again when Sasuke’s nightmares came back to haunt him.

His REM time always went down during this part of the year and horrible memories replayed in his head, waking or asleep. He wasn't in any way sensitive about things in general but experiencing the trauma as a child had seared something deep in his soul.

Hence, he could never look at December the same.

Naruto had always been the one to reach out, from the very start. And, curiously enough, two years into their relationship unconsciously he began doing a thing...a mid-sleep gesture of sorts. He would reach out and touch Sasuke in the middle of his back.

The gesture always grounded him; it kept him feeling less likely to topple over at a moment's notice. Keeping him from losing sight of the present he lived in and the person he loved in it. Keeping him from succumbing to the past he would get sucked into and the people he loved in it. It helped him in the face of thoughts he had as he gazed at the balcony attached to their bedroom.

Four years into the relationship he stopped wearing shirts to bed, preferring the heat of skin to skin contact.

When Sasuke’s gaze had begun to wander to the balcony, Naruto started a new thing. Sasuke couldn’t tell whether Naruto was conscious of this train of thought. Or whether Naruto just instinctually knew what to do but whatever the case was … He did it.

The friction when a palm against his spine would snake around and drape against his waist. Holding onto him, tenderly enough to be grounding but comforting at the same time.

He could tell the grip was getting stronger as the days went by, and as the month moved by. Sasuke would feel the days on his skin slipping like cuts of a convict's blade carving lines of a tally in the stone wall, awaiting the end of a sentence.

Six years into the relationship and Sasuke would wake up at odd hours sporting a vice-like grip from the blond man behind him. Tight, suffocating embraces with white-knuckled desperation.

One night he awoke to a slap. His eyes opened, hazy and unsure. Hot hands clenched at his hair as the man in front of him tried to shake him up.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?!” was the enraged question falling from the blond man's lips. His tone holding resemblance to a growl. “Inching toward this blasted spot night after night!”

Blinking away the sleep and shivering against the cold Sasuke came to the realisation that they both stood between the curtains as they whipped at their naked arms at the threshold of the balcony.

“You are not getting out of this.” Naruto’s voice wavered gruffly, his hold loosening on black hair then slipping down to shoulders that shiver not only from the cold. “I'll keep you alive even if I have to tie you to the bed and close up this balcony brick by fucking brick. Your life is mine now. As mine is yours. It’s what you promised.”

Sasuke breathed shakily. For the first time in months, it felt like the oxygen actually made it to his brain.

“I did.” Fell the agreement from his lips in a voice suddenly sure, and the words immediately soared.

Naruto’s grip tightened. “I won’t let you leave me too. Not if I can help it.”

“I understand.” And Sasuke did. He knew Naruto’s childhood just as well as Naruto knew his.

“Then, marry me. Promise me your life again. And again every night for as long as we live. Because I won’t live without you, Sas.”

Sasuke’s smile split slowly, like tectonic plates shifting for the first time in centuries. “Always cutting me to the chase, loser.”

“Shut up,” Naruto swore a hundred words in contrasting relief as a grin formed on his face even as his hands shook when he shoved the pale man back inside and shut the door to the balcony behind them, locking it and drawing the curtains.

 

**_Fini._ **


End file.
